


Deer in the headlights

by isamariposa



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, More Gen Than Anything, One Night Stands, Sharing a Bed, questionable furniture choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21705649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isamariposa/pseuds/isamariposa
Summary: Ulana has nowhere to stay after she gets out of jail. She ends up in Valery's flat. There is only one bed.
Relationships: Ulana Khomyuk/Valery Legasov
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Deer in the headlights

**Author's Note:**

> Re: the carpet on the sofa, see this [post](https://chernoblank.tumblr.com/post/189174972339/chernoblank-urgent-question-would-an-ulana-sized)
> 
> Thank you kriegskrieg, and as usual I blame pottedmusic for this.

* * *

In retrospect, it did seem like a good idea.

As they stepped outside of the grim detainment center, and Ulana breathed out a sigh of relief, Valery asked "Do you have a safe place to stay tonight?" and she could have gone back to her dingy little hotel, she could have. She just couldn't bear the thought of it: it had likely become the unsafest spot for her in Moscow, with the KGB goons breathing down her neck. And well, she could imagine Marina's unimpressed grimace if Ulana showed up on her doorstep, _'yes, hello, I just got out of jail, do you have a place for me to stay the night?'_ So she shook her head no, and Valery sighed.

"Would you like to come home with me?" he asked.

She glanced at him, sharply. Coming from any other man, the request would have alarmed her. But Valery, somehow, managed to sound both unassuming and platonic. He only gazed at her, his gaze sheepish and kind behind those thick glasses. Ulana knew, or thought she knew, what the man sounded like when he was trying to flirt: his awkward (drunken?) request for her to go to Moscow three days earlier had left her puzzled, wondering if he was about to do more, and then he'd left the bar too quickly for her to react. Maybe she just didn't know how to read him. In any case, she agreed to go with him, and after picking up her beaten-down suitcase from the hotel, they made their way to where he lived.

So, yes, in retrospect: good idea.

Now that she stands in the living room of his flat, Ulana wonders what she was thinking. Well, for starters, she did not think the First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute lived in a flat barely bigger than her own in Minsk. She expected a house. With many rooms. Many _beds_. Not this little one-bedroom flat with, yes, indeed, only one bed, and a tiny bed at that, barely suitable for one person.

"Why do you live here?" she blurts out, bemused.

Valery stops fiddling with the matchbox. "What?" he asks, just as puzzled.

"In this flat. Not in a house. Closer to your Institute."

Valery chuckles. He strikes a match and lights his cigarette. Then he glances up at her.

"They did offer me a house. In the neighborhood with the other scientists."

"And?"

"I refused it." She must be giving him a blank look, because he waves his hand impatiently. "Velikhov lives there. I see enough of him as is."

Ulana knows who Velikhov is, because he's been calling to Pripyat non-stop. He also writes letters. Valery hates him, she's gathered as much. Shcherbina has studiously kept him away from the disaster zone.

"Besides," Valery adds, his tone a little dry, "what need do I have for a house all to myself? I'm not married. I don't have children."

Ulana can understand that. After her ex-husband and the children left, their flat felt enormous with just her in it - when it was unbearably cramped before. She applied to move out at once, but it took months and months where she hated being there by herself. Not that she was there often, before. That was when she began sleeping at work, come to think about it.

"Why do you ask, anyway?" Valery asks, and he sounds amused, like he's teasing her, but a cautious kind of tease, as if he were unsure it would be welcome. "Are you disappointed?"

"Well, yes," Ulana answers, not sugar-coating the issue. "Where am I going to sleep?"

"On the bed," he says, raising his eyebrows as if she were asking something very stupid.

Maybe she _is_ being stupid. Maybe he did have an ulterior motive when he asked her home, and she was oblivious to it, and now they're in his flat and he's expecting her to have sex with him. Her heart jumps at the prospect, annoyingly, and she is quick to smother it.

"And you?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"On the sofa."

He gestures towards it. Ulana looks in that direction and she has to do a double take. Yes, there's a sofa by the living room window. A cat is curled up on it, looking at her with interest. But the sofa is barely large enough to fit a child, and it is inexplicably covered by one of those carpets with deer in a pastoral setting that seem to be ubiquitous everywhere. A carpet. On the sofa. Ulana blinks, and chooses to focus on the least absurd part of her discovery.

"Valery," she says. "You won't fit there."

"Of course I fit. I've fallen asleep there plenty of times."

"Fallen asleep but not slept the night, I bet. Aren't you fifty? Your bones will make you regret it in the morning."

"I'm forty-nine," Valery corrects, pedantically. "Not that much older than you. And you're my guest. You should sleep on the bed."

"That doesn't make any sense. My chances of fitting in your sofa and getting a good night's sleep are astronomically higher than yours."

"Astronomically." He huffs. "Fine. If you insist."

She looks at the sofa again. She's slept in worse places than this, up to and including her desk at work. Maybe if she curls on her side, with her knees bent, she will fit. Somehow. She isn't thrilled by the prospect. The cat doesn't seem to be, either.

"Do you want to sleep now?" Valery asks, taking a drag out of his cigarette. "It's nearly one o'clock."

"Yes, I suppose it's time. I'd like t-to," she stammers, horrifyingly, "I'd like to have a shower, is it possible? Please? That place was disgusting."

"Yes," Valery says, the kindness returning to his gaze briefly. "Yes, of course. The bathroom is just there in the hallway. I'll make a phone call in the meantime."

"Who will you call at one in the morning?" Ulana asks, without thinking, and then she realizes that it's none of her business.

But Valery answers, as if it were obvious, "Boris. He was worried about you."

That stuns her for a moment. Shcherbina has been nothing but curtly polite if she's generous, and brazenly unpleasant if she's truthful. He had the nerve to yell at her in Pripyat one morning. She yelled right back.

"Worried?" she repeats. "I thought he found me profoundly annoying."

"He does not," Valery says, and then smirks. "Maybe a little bit. But he didn't want you in jail, that's for certain. He was making arrangements to get you out before I... precipitated your release." When Ulana says nothing as she tries to make sense of these revelations in quick succession, he adds, with a chuckle, "If my flat is so unsuitable for you, I should take you to Shcherbina's place. You should see it. That house is enormous. He must have at least three rooms to spare for guests."

"Your flat is fine," Ulana says, her tone clipped, when in truth she's dying to ask a multitude of questions like what kind of house Boris has, why Valery has been there, and whether she'd be truly welcome or shown the door as she suspects.

She makes her way to the bathroom, suitcase and all, before Valery can say anything else. She shuts the door and leans against it with a sigh. Safe. She opens her eyes slowly. There's a very masculine smell in here - soap or whatever it is that Valery uses to shave. A series of small puddles start from the shower, trailing all the way to the sink: he must have showered not long ago, likely before his meeting at the Kremlin. He shaved, too: his razor sits on the edge of the sink, some hairs still caught on the blade. There's some fuzz in the sink. Ulana rolls her eyes. She opens the tap to let the hair rinse down the drain, and then inspects the shower. It'll be fine. If she cleans herself, everything will be fine, and she'll do her best to forget that ghastly prison cell.

Valery didn't offer a towel, and there is only one in the bathroom. After her shower, she must dry herself with it. It smells of him. She used rather warm water, but that isn't what's making her feel flushed: she's rubbing his towel all over herself. He rubbed himself with it too. It makes her hesitate to continue, but well, what else is she to do, drip out onto the living room? She hangs the towel in its place when she's done, and rummages in her suitcase. There isn't much in there, only what she threw in when she idiotically decided she'd go to Chernobyl. She wishes she had a nightgown that didn't make her look like someone's grandmother, but she only has the one. 

Ulana steps out in the hallway cautiously. Valery is no longer on the phone. He isn't in the kitchen either, so she assumes he's in his bedroom. She walks to the living room, where the cat is still curled on the sofa. Valery has placed a blanket on top of it. No pillow. Ulana sighs and makes her way there, shooing the cat gently. There's no way she's going to sleep on a _carpet_. She pulls it off the sofa, unsure what to do with, and ends up throwing it on an armchair. Underneath, the sofa is brown. Brown, and uncomfortable when she sits on it.

"Oh," Valery says. She glances up, mortified to be seen like this. But he isn't looking at her, not really. He's staring at the carpet that she just removed. The deer in it seem to glare at her reproachfully. 

She just has to ask, "Why did you have a carpet on your sofa?" 

"I don't know," Valery says, and he laughs. "I can't remember."

Ulana has never heard him laugh before, not like this, earnest and open. She can't help laughing with him, for a brief moment. It does things to her, things she doesn't want to feel. Something changed between them when he came to get her out of the detainment center. She doesn't know what to make of it. Valery is wearing only an undershirt and some loose trousers, and he's still grinning at her. It's all terribly intimate. She wishes she could cover herself to avoid his gaze, and short of doing that too obviously, she wraps the blanket around herself, trying to negotiate how to lie down on the sofa the most comfortably. It's... an ordeal.

"Will you be alright?" Valery asks, and steps closer, looking doubtful.

"Yes, I'll be fine, good night."

"If you change your mind, come get me. Really. We'll switch. I'll leave my bedroom door open." She doesn't say anything. "Good night."

Ulana hears him turning off several lights in the flat, and then the sound of him sliding into bed. Then, silence. He'll leave his bedroom door open, he says. If she were on a proper bed, she'd toss and turn thinking about those words. But she must stay very still, uncomfortably so. The cat is staring at her, whipping his tail against the floor unhappily. She must have stolen his favorite spot.

"Sorry," she whispers to him, and tries her best to fall asleep.

* * *

Ulana can't have slept more than two hours when something heavy hits her in the stomach.

"Oof," she moans, and opens her eyes to find Valery's cat on top of her belly. "Come on, kitty," she mumbles, trying to get him off, but the cat starts walking on her, his little paws digging into her stomach. He's feeling territorial of the sofa. Of course. As she moves her arm towards him, Ulana realizes her neck hurts abominably. "Ugh," she protests, and sits up.

Triumphant, the cat curls on the other side of the sofa. Ulana glares at him, rubbing her neck. She might have overestimated her ability to sleep in such a contorted position. The pain radiates down her spine, too. If she keeps this up, she won't be able to stand the next morning. She thinks of Valery's bed longingly. 

Oh, screw it. 

She'll do it. What's the worst that can happen? More intimacy, a little voice whispers, as if making fun of her, but she is so tired she chooses to ignore it. The most probable scenario is a good night's sleep. Lured by that, Ulana tumbles down the hallway, dragging her blanket along. Valery is asleep, curled on his side, snoring a little. She touches his arm, and he opens his eyes with a start. He squints up at her, confused. He probably can't see her well, without his glasses.

"Move," Ulana says.

"Wha?" he mumbles.

"I changed my mind. I'm sleeping here. Make room for me."

He stares at her, as if still not understanding, but he's too sleepy to argue. He moves to the side, and Ulana slides on the minuscule bed. It smells of him. They do fit in it together, actually. They just have to lie very straight, no curling to the side. It's probably better for their backs, anyway. Valery sighs.

"Weren't your chances astronomically high?" he teases with a yawn.

"Shut up," Ulana grumbles, trying not to notice how warm the side of his arm feels pressed up against her as he tries to make himself comfortable. "Stop moving. Didn't you ever sleep with a sibling when you were a kid?"

"You are _so_ not a sister," Valery states, sleepy laughter bubbling up to his lips.

"What am I, then?"

"I don't know. Annoying girlfriend?" Ulana elbows him in the ribs and he lets out an indignant huff. "Ah, fine, you're not that annoying."

"I'm also not your girlfriend. I'm your _colleague_."

"Mmhmm," he mumbles, and she feels him relaxing close to her as he likely sinks back into sleep.

But he isn't sleeping. It's been decades since she shared a bed with someone, let alone a man, but she knows what people sound like when they're sleeping, their breathing deep and regular. Valery's is quick, uneven, maybe a little hitched. The flat is in complete silence but for the sound of their breathing. Good god, what _are_ they doing? How did she end up in his bed? Ulana feels more awake than she's ever been. She sighs, rather loudly, and immediately regrets it when Valery sighs again.

"Just go to sleep," he says, infuriating as only he can manage to be. "Aren't you tired?"

"Yes," she says. "I couldn't sleep there, last night."

She feels the mattress shifting as he turns towards her and props himself on one elbow. It's very dark in the bedroom, but she can make out Valery's eyes searching for hers. She holds his gaze. 

"What did they do to you?" he whispers.

"Nothing. Nothing, really. I just worried they might do something."

"Did they... threaten you?"

"No," she says, and her voice wavers at the memory of the walls of that place. At one point, she resorted to estimating the volume of the room to pass the time without worrying herself to death (approximately 18m³). "They didn't say anything at all. They just locked me up and left me there until you came." She swallows. "All I could think was... how I let you down."

"No!" Valery protests, but Ulana shakes her head. 

"I was stupid. I should have been more careful."

"It wasn't your fault. Whatever happened, I'd never hold it against you. I knew what I was asking of you when I sent you here. You are probably more diplomatic that I'd ever manage to be."

"Me? Diplomatic?" Ulana laughs. "You got the wrong person for the job."

"I got the perfect one," Valery says, and there's a strange warmth in his tone. It's too dark to see him properly. She wishes she could. 

"I'm awful at talking to people," she admits. "To _dying_ people. Sometimes I could see my questions were hurting them, but I trudged on asking. It was despicable. I was despicable."

"No," he says. "No." Then he adds, in a whisper, "I'm sorry."

"Whatever for?"

"For dragging you into this."

"I drove to Pripyat myself, remember? Nothing would stop me. I got myself in this mess, Valery. I suppose I have to see my way through it until the bitter end."

"It doesn't have to be like this." 

His hand shocks her, when he reaches to touch her. It rests on her belly, over her blanket, searing hot against her. He probably means it as a friendly or comforting gesture, but it has the opposite effect: disquieted, Ulana feels as if she were waking up from a long slumber, her limbs, her chest, her very blood suddenly coming to life. She's definitely not going back to sleep any time soon now, not with her heart hammering on like this. She shivers.

"Are you cold?" he asks, in a whisper. 

It stuns her how gentle he can be, in the darkness of his bedroom, speaking in hushed tones like this. Valery tugs her blanket upwards, wrapping it more snuggly around her, up to her shoulders. His breath is shaky. Not unlike hers. She doesn't know who starts the gesture, who leans closer first. But his arms slide around her, and she leans forward with the same movement, until her forehead is resting against his chest.

"Valery," she warns, her voice raspy, but it rather feels like she's warning herself instead of him.

She can hear his heartbeat, quick, wild, echoing loudly on the walls of his chest. At least! They may die very soon, but not yet. Not yet. She finds herself holding on to him, to his undershirt, until she's pulled him even closer against her. What should she do? Do nothing? Pretend this is normal? The platonic interpretations for this embrace are running thin in her head. And yet. Valery's chin presses to the top of her head, and Ulana can just imagine falling asleep like this, clinging to each other like children in the dark.

"How else can it be, then... Valery?" she manages to ask, her voice muffled by his chest as she redirects the conversation to where they left it.

"You don't have to do this alone," he says, almost too eagerly. " _We_ don't have to. I can send for other scientists. To help me. To take over your work. It doesn't have to be... this lonely."

This last word startles her. It's always been lonely. Lonely is all she's ever known. And yet she says, her fierceness returning all at once, "No! I don't want any others to take over. I'll finish this. I won't rest until I do."

She tries pulling back, but finds that she cannot: Valery won't let go of his hold, won't let her move away from him. He lets out a sigh, seemingly of relief.

"Thank you," he whispers against her hair. "I don't want any others either. I only want you."

The long silence that follows lets her know he too has realised the implications of what he just said, whether he meant it that way or not. His heartbeat picks up even more, and she feels him tensing against her. He is about to let go, she can tell. His grip already loosens on her. Panicked, Ulana reaches to pull him down and raises herself up a little, enough to press her mouth to his lips. She senses his surprise, and then the surge of intent as he kisses her back, rolling until he's lying on top of her. It's been so long, so long, that she can't help gasping into the kiss as she feels his full weight on her, pinning her down with his hips. He kisses harder than she expected.

Not that she expected this, not like this.

She does wants him, but it just shocks her how quickly he got fired up - how hungry his kisses are, starved, greedy. He slides a resolute hand down to her breasts. They're really doing this, then. Ulana wishes the light was on, she wants to see. But she keeps her mouth shut: this way, it will be easier to forget it later. Valery starts hiking her nightgown up, sliding a hand between her legs, his fingers fumbling, trying to touch her. She lets him, too tired, too strung up to mind the little voice warning her that they are probably going to regret this later on. 

When it's done, she falls asleep like a log - with his arms around her, and she doesn't even mind.

  
  


* * *

The sound of a door being shut startles her awake. Ulana sits up, disoriented. She's in Valery's bed alright, but there's daylight out the window, and he isn't there. The cat is staring up at her from the floor. The door of the bedroom is closed, and she can hear voices in the living room. As she shifts her legs to get out of bed, she feels uncomfortably sticky - a stark reminder that what happened in this bed was not a dream. Her thighs, too, are sore from being spread. It was rather vigorous, wasn't it. Ulana shakes her head at herself. 

She nearly jumps when the bedroom door cracks open: Valery peeks inside, and she blushes, stupidly, when their gazes meet.

"Oh, good, you're awake," he says. He sounds nervous.

Valery steps inside and closes the door behind himself. For a moment, it seems he might just turn around and leave, but he moves closer, cautious like a cat, then sits on the edge of the bed by Ulana's feet. He's freshly showered, his hair still wet, and he's wearing new clothes for the day. Ulana is certain her face is red right now, because he smells good, and the fact that his tie is crooked only makes him look more endearing.

"Boris is here," Valery says. 

"What? Why?"

"We have our flight back to Pripyat in less than two hours. We have to… I have to leave very soon."

Oh. What was she thinking, really? That they'd have time for themselves? They aren't normal people, not anymore. An entire nation depends on them, on their findings, on their leadership. There is no time for frivolities. This, says the little voice, this is what I meant when I said you'd regret it. Ulana swallows.

And yet Valery says, "I hope you know this is not how I would have wanted to spend this morning. After what happened."

She keeps her head high, somehow. "Maybe it's better this way."

He frowns. "I don't think so."

He glances at her lips. She wishes her heart wasn't beating so fast.

"Does Shcherbina know I'm still here?" she asks, to deflect the possibility of a kiss to make everything even more complicated.

"Yes. He said he's arranged a safe place for you to stay. No one will bother you anymore. You'll have to sign some papers, of course. He brought them with him."

She wonders if Shcherbina knows what happened, too. Or if he suspects it. There's no reason why he would - they should have slept apart, really. Nine times out of ten they would have. Having ended up on the wrong side of a dice throw isn't especially thrilling. Nor is the prospect of dealing with Boris this early in the morning, still in her nightgown.

"I will get dressed," she says, and gets out of bed.

Valery too stands. She tries to avoid him on her way to the door, but he is just standing there awkwardly, blocking her, then in trying to get out of the way he moves along with her: trapped in a clumsy dance. He holds her by the shoulders to stop her and end the nonsense. His hands are unsteady. Ulana still won't meet his gaze, not even when he bends down to search for her eyes.

"Please," he says. "I don't want this to end like this."

"How should it end, then?"

"I don't know. I make tea. We talk. We have breakfast. I ask you stay for longer."

He attempts a smile, but it looks so sad she has to close her eyes for a brief moment. It rattles her how much this hurts, how much she would have wanted this - and she didn't know it until Valery said it out loud. 

"Tea would be nice," Ulana says, noncommittally, very much ignoring the siren going off in her mind. It sounds like the accident siren of her lab. She should step away from all this, while she is still sane.

"I can at least do that," Valery says. "I think there is time."

When he leans down to kiss her, she turns her head to the side, away from him. Valery freezes, his gaze pained.

"It... it wouldn't do, to do this again," she says. "We both know that. Don't we?"

"Yes," he says, his voice hoarse, and then he clears his throat. "It's not a good time."

"It's arguably the worst time there could ever be," Ulana says. She should smile, as if it were a joke (ha-ha, nuclear catastrophe level of bad timing), but she cannot. She feels tense, on the edge - as if she were making a dreadful mistake but must still watch it unfold, powerless to stop it like a deer caught in the headlights.

"I'll make tea," Valery says, and lets go of her. 

He leaves the room. 

The cat is still staring up at Ulana from the bedroom floor.

"Screw you," she mutters at him, and waits until she hears the voices move to the kitchen before she hazards out to the bathroom.

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
